The Colorado Avalanche continued their hot streak this preseason with another shutout victory, this time over the Dallas Stars by a score of 1-0. While no one was able to actually see any of the game (again), the soothing voices of Marc Moser and Peter McNab did their best to describe the play for Avs fans around the world.
One consistent throughout training camp and the preseason for the Avalanche has been tremendous goaltending, and that continued tonight with Calvin Pickard picking up a 28 save shutout. Pickard likely won’t see action again until the regular season, but following up starter Semyon Varlamov’s shutout with one of his own is one way for him to stake his claim to a good portion of games this year.
The lone goal of the night came on a three way passing play between Mike Sislo, Ben Smith, and Andreas Martinsen, with Martinsen burying a pass from Smith for his first goal of the preseason. The big Norwegian is in a battle for one of the last forward spots in the NHL, and followed up a strong performance from the night before with a big goal tonight.
One other highlight from the night was the reuniting of the “Nine Line”, with Gabriel Landeskog and Matt Duchene playing on the wing with center Nathan MacKinnon. The line was the only one on the Avs where all three players on the line had positive possession numbers. The Avalanche had arguably their strongest stretch of the season last year with the three of them playing together, and they combined to draw three penalties on the Dallas Stars tonight.
A spot that seems to be up for grabs is the one next to Erik Johnson on the Avs blueline. With Francois Beauchemin seemingly being joined at the hip with Tyson Barrie through camp, the Avs have tried several players in that spot, and tonight, Nikita Zadorov got his chance. Zadorov finished with far and away the best possession numbers on the Avs (64.29%), and the radio crew of Moser and McNab were praising him left and right, with Moser even going as far as to say that’s the best he’s ever seen Zadorov play. The 21-year old Russian stepping up and taking the spot next to EJ would go a long way in fixing the Avs defensive woes.
An area of concern for the team may be the power play. The Avs failed to score a single 5-on-3 goal all last season, and didn’t produce many chances on an extended 5-on-3 this evening. They also managed to go 0-for-8 on the power play. It’s an area they’ll need to clean up before October 15.
The Avalanche will close out the preseason on Saturday Night with their annual Frozen Fury game against the Los Angeles Kings. The game is scheduled to be televised on the NHL Network, and should be most fan’s first opportunity to see Jared Bednar’s club this year.
